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Number of posts in this thread: 11 (In chronological order)

From: Alastair Campbell
Date: Tue, Oct 29 2013 9:16AM
Subject: Server side (accessible) PDF creation
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Hi everyone,

A few years ago I looked into server-side PDF creation of accessible
(tagged) PDFs and didn't find much.

I was only looking for open source programs at the time though, now I'm
open to anything. (Windows or *nix servers.)

Does anyone know of any good options? I assume Adobe do one but my
google-foo doesn't seem to work, I must be missing a keyword or two!

Any other providers for server-side tagged PDFs?

-Alastair

From: Schalk Neethling
Date: Tue, Oct 29 2013 9:20AM
Subject: Re: Server side (accessible) PDF creation
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Hey Alastair,

I am not sure how accessible this is, used it a long time ago but, have
you looked at http://www.eclipse.org/birt/phoenix/

It is mostly for reporting I believe, not sure if that fits your needs
but, can also generate PDF. HTH

On 29/10/2013 17:16, Alastair Campbell wrote:
> Hi everyone,
>
> A few years ago I looked into server-side PDF creation of accessible
> (tagged) PDFs and didn't find much.
>
> I was only looking for open source programs at the time though, now I'm
> open to anything. (Windows or *nix servers.)
>
> Does anyone know of any good options? I assume Adobe do one but my
> google-foo doesn't seem to work, I must be missing a keyword or two!
>
> Any other providers for server-side tagged PDFs?
>
> -Alastair
> > > >

--
Kind Regards
Schalk Neethling
Lead Front-End Engineer
Mozilla

From: Cameron Cundiff
Date: Tue, Oct 29 2013 12:28PM
Subject: Re: Server side (accessible) PDF creation
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Alistair, take a look at Apache PDFBox <http://pdfbox.apache.org/>;. It is
open source, and based on a cursory exploration it supports generating
tagged pdfs.


On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 11:20 AM, Schalk Neethling
< = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >wrote:

> Hey Alastair,
>
> I am not sure how accessible this is, used it a long time ago but, have
> you looked at http://www.eclipse.org/birt/phoenix/
>
> It is mostly for reporting I believe, not sure if that fits your needs
> but, can also generate PDF. HTH
>
> On 29/10/2013 17:16, Alastair Campbell wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > A few years ago I looked into server-side PDF creation of accessible
> > (tagged) PDFs and didn't find much.
> >
> > I was only looking for open source programs at the time though, now I'm
> > open to anything. (Windows or *nix servers.)
> >
> > Does anyone know of any good options? I assume Adobe do one but my
> > google-foo doesn't seem to work, I must be missing a keyword or two!
> >
> > Any other providers for server-side tagged PDFs?
> >
> > -Alastair
> > > > > > > >
>
> --
> Kind Regards
> Schalk Neethling
> Lead Front-End Engineer
> Mozilla
> > > >

From: catherine binon
Date: Tue, Oct 29 2013 1:47PM
Subject: Re: Server side (accessible) PDF creation
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Le 29 oct. 2013 à 19:28, Cameron Cundiff a écrit :

> Alistair, take a look at Apache PDFBox <http://pdfbox.apache.org/>;. It is
> open source, and based on a cursory exploration it supports generating
> tagged pdfs.
>
>
> On Tue, Oct 29, 2013 at 11:20 AM, Schalk Neethling
> < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >wrote:
>
>> Hey Alastair,
>>
>> I am not sure how accessible this is, used it a long time ago but, have
>> you looked at http://www.eclipse.org/birt/phoenix/
>>
>> It is mostly for reporting I believe, not sure if that fits your needs
>> but, can also generate PDF. HTH
>>
>> On 29/10/2013 17:16, Alastair Campbell wrote:
>>> Hi everyone,
>>>
>>> A few years ago I looked into server-side PDF creation of accessible
>>> (tagged) PDFs and didn't find much.
>>>
>>> I was only looking for open source programs at the time though, now I'm
>>> open to anything. (Windows or *nix servers.)
>>>
>>> Does anyone know of any good options? I assume Adobe do one but my
>>> google-foo doesn't seem to work, I must be missing a keyword or two!
>>>
>>> Any other providers for server-side tagged PDFs?
>>>
>>> -Alastair
>>> >>> >>> >>>
>>
>> --
>> Kind Regards
>> Schalk Neethling
>> Lead Front-End Engineer
>> Mozilla
>> >> >> >>
> > >

From: Alastair Campbell
Date: Wed, Oct 30 2013 8:23AM
Subject: Re: Server side (accessible) PDF creation
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Hi Cameron and Schalk,

Thanks for those. I couldn't find any references to tagging in either of
them though?

I also couldn't find a PDF to test out on PDFbox, and the first I found on
Phoenix wasn't tagged (not necessarily a sign it cannot tag, but not a good
start).

I'm not a Java programmer so not in a position to download then and create
test cases, but I'll pass them on as a possibility for to investigate.

Thanks,

-Alastair

From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Wed, Oct 30 2013 8:25AM
Subject: Re: Server side (accessible) PDF creation
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Alastair,
Just to chime in on this, if you are looking for the Adobe server-based tool, you're looking for Adobe LiveCycle.
AWK

From: Olaf Drümmer
Date: Wed, Oct 30 2013 9:51AM
Subject: Re: Server side (accessible) PDF creation
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Hi Andrew,

are you intending to say LiveCycle is good at creating accessible PDF forms, or really accessible PDF documents in general?

And regarding forms: would that be (accessible) LiveCycle forms (also known as XFA forms), or also so called (accessible) AcroForms?

Olaf


Am 30 Oct 2013 um 15:25 schrieb Andrew Kirkpatrick < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >:

> Alastair,
> Just to chime in on this, if you are looking for the Adobe server-based tool, you're looking for Adobe LiveCycle.
> AWK
>
>

From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Wed, Oct 30 2013 10:26AM
Subject: Re: Server side (accessible) PDF creation
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I'm saying that the LiveCycle family of products creates tagged PDF forms that can support accessibility, both forms and documents without interactive controls. For forms, LiveCycle creates XFA and Acroforms, as well as creating HTML forms from the same design source file.

AWK

From: Ryan E. Benson
Date: Sat, Nov 02 2013 2:47PM
Subject: Re: Server side (accessible) PDF creation
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Andrew - I tend to push people away from LiveCycle as much as possible.
While I have not upgraded to Acrobat XI, *none* of the tools or my standard
procedures for testing can be used. As somebody who often has to officially
give a green light to something, a PDF made in LiveCycle roughly quadruples
my turn-around time.

Alastair - you may want to check out iText. I heard that it can create
tagged PDFs. The author seems fairly active on StackOverflow.

--
Ryan E. Benson


On Wed, Oct 30, 2013 at 12:26 PM, Andrew Kirkpatrick < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >wrote:

> I'm saying that the LiveCycle family of products creates tagged PDF forms
> that can support accessibility, both forms and documents without
> interactive controls. For forms, LiveCycle creates XFA and Acroforms, as
> well as creating HTML forms from the same design source file.
>
> AWK
>
>

From: Olaf Drümmer
Date: Sat, Nov 02 2013 3:09PM
Subject: Re: Server side (accessible) PDF creation
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Once we take libraries into consideration, PDFlib is another option - they have offered PDF/UA support for a while now and have been able to create accessible tagged PDF for a few years.

As it is a very flexible and powerful programming library, the quality of its output mostly depend on how it is used. On the syntax level, it does a perfect job.

PDFlib can be deployed on just about any server platform, including Mac, Windows, Linux, Sun, AIX and a few more. It's written in C/C++, and a lot of bindings for other language are provided, including the likes of Java, PHP, etc.


Extensive documentation can be found on their website:
www.pdflib.com


Olaf




Am 2 Nov 2013 um 21:47 schrieb Ryan E. Benson < = EMAIL ADDRESS REMOVED = >:

> Alastair - you may want to check out iText. I heard that it can create
> tagged PDFs. The author seems fairly active on StackOverflow.

From: Andrew Kirkpatrick
Date: Mon, Nov 04 2013 1:16PM
Subject: Re: Server side (accessible) PDF creation
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Ryan,
It might be worth highlighting the tools that you can use as I don't find the same increase when doing that testing. Yes, it is a pain if you a looking for tags in Acrobat and there aren't there because the file is a dynamic XFA document, but it should be noted that Livecycle also produces static PDF forms so not all livecycle forms present this challenge.

I tend to use PDDOMView.exe (http://download.macromedia.com/pub/developer/acrobat/acrobat_accessibility_9.1.zip) to view the accessibility information for a PDF, whether from Acrobat or LiveCycle so I don't see any difference in the testing experience there, for me. Your mileage may vary.

If the form you are testing actually needs the dynamic features available in dynamic XFA, then there may be a reason that the forms take longer, which is that they may just be more complex than simple forms. Just as a very dynamic HTML form takes more time to test, so can a dynamic PDF form.

AWK